


Time For You To Know The Awful Truth

by anistarrose



Series: Stanuary 2020 [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Stangst, Stanuary, Stanuary 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22217719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anistarrose/pseuds/anistarrose
Summary: Even without all of his memories, Stan still knows when people are lying to him. Or so he thinks.
Relationships: Ford Pines & Stan Pines, Mabel Pines & Stan Pines
Series: Stanuary 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589164
Comments: 16
Kudos: 201
Collections: Stanuary





	Time For You To Know The Awful Truth

**Author's Note:**

> For Stanuary Week 2: Secret.
> 
> (Warnings for grappling with impostor syndrome and self-deprecating thoughts in general)

Stan wakes up in his chair with a pillow behind his head and someone at his side, snoring softly and leaning on his shoulder. It’s so pleasant that for a few minutes, he doesn’t question it, instead oping to keep his eyes closed and savor every moment of this sleepy, inexplicably comforting companionship. 

But this peace doesn’t last long, and the part of his brain that remembers how to _worry_ awakens abruptly.

_What time is it? I need to get up before the tourists get here —_

_Wait, what_ day _is it? Why did I fall asleep in the living room? And who else is —_

“Stanley?” the person leaning against Stan’s shoulder speaks up. The voice is achingly familiar, but placing _why_ it’s important to him is a whole different beast that Stan’s sleep-muddled brain struggles to tackle. 

He opens his eyes, blinking a few times as the voice’s owner comes into focus. It’s a gray-haired man, who’s gotten out of his seat at Stan’s side to face him and give him a concerned look.

“Is everything okay?” Twelve fingers, trembling with nervous energy, intertwine with those of Stan’s own hands. “Do you remember what happened yesterday?”

“You’re… you’re Ford. Right?” Stan’s voice comes out sounding more desperate than he expects it to, maybe because Ford’s anxiety is contagious — or maybe because he just took about twenty full seconds to recognize his own twin brother’s voice, and what the hell is _that_ supposed to mean about the state of his mind?

“That’s right,” Ford assures him, and it sounds almost like he’s trying to reassure _himself_ , too. “Do you know your great-niece and nephew’s names?”

“Dipper and Mabel.” Thankfully, Stan can put faces to the names, but it only serves to highlight the other details that escape him — how long has he been looking after them? How _old_ are they? Twelve? Thirteen? Have they turned thirteen yet — when is their birthday?

“That’s a relief.” Ford manages an encouraging smile. “You’ve retained the most important memories we reintroduced to you yesterday. As long as we keep up the scrapbook therapy, you should keep improving —”

“A relief to _you_ , maybe, but not to me! I don’t know what _anything_ you just said meant —”

Ford’s smile deflates. “I’m sorry. I should’ve known better than to dump all that information on you at once. You don’t need to understand this all right away, Stan; you should just be taking it easy, because you’ve been through a lot —”

“Yeah, I kinda guessed as much, but _what_?” Stan asked. “What _happened_ to me? Why are all my memories so — why are all my memories things I have to _work_ for?”

Ford averts his eyes. “You did something very heroic, Stanley.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not important. Not right now.” With a clearly forced smile, Ford adds: “Let’s just focus on getting you a hero’s breakfast, alright?”

Despite all the holes in his memory, Stan knows his brother. He _knows_ no elaboration is forthcoming no matter how much he asks — so he drops the topic, and lets Ford lead him into the kitchen.

The questions still linger at the back of his mind, but Ford doesn’t have to know that.

***

“Do you remember what I picked out from your gift shop at the beginning of the summer, Grunkle Stan?” Mabel asks him the next afternoon. She sits in his lap, holding her scrapbook as has become routine since the memory wipe.

“That one’s easy, a grappling hook. And your brother got a new hat.”

“And do you remember what attraction Gompers tried to eat the next day?”

Stan rubs his head. “Was it… a Mothman made out of cans of soup broth?”

Mabel laughs. “No, but that does sound like something you’d make!”

“Sweetie, you should go outside,” Stan tells her with a sigh. “Get some fresh air. You’ve been cooped up in here with me practically all day.”

“Yeah, you’re right, it’s a little stuffy in here. Let’s go sit on the porch —” She springs out of his lap and starts heading for the door, but pauses when she realizes Stan isn’t following her. “Wait, aren’t you coming? What’s wrong?”

_A lot of things, Mabel. A lot of things._ “I meant you should go outside _without_ me. Do something fun — hang out with your friends, visit the pool, something like that. This town _does_ have a pool, right?”

“It… does,” Mabel replies, more slowly than Stan’s ever heard her speak before, “but… what about you? Your memories are still…”

“I can flip through the scrapbook on my own — it’s not like I forgot how to read.”

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt for me to get up and stretch my legs… I know, how about I go get Dipper or Ford to talk to you? They need to spend some time outside of that musty old basement anyway —”

“But aren’t they doing important science stuff down there? I’m not worth bothering them for. You just go enjoy the rest of your summer, kid. Don’t worry about me —”

“But I _want_ to spend the rest of my summer with you!” Mabel blurts out. “’Cause I’m gonna miss you when it’s over, and I — I _want_ to help you remember! And Dipper and Ford do too, because you mean the world to them!”

“…If you say so, kid.” Stan doesn’t feel like he’s putting on a very convincing act, but Mabel looks relieved beyond belief as he gets out of his chair. “Okay, how about… we _both_ go for a walk, and you show me around the town?”

Mabel’s eyes light up. “Great idea! The whole town’s been worrying about you — and now that you’re doing better, they’ll be so relieved to see you up and about!”

Stan knows that can’t be right, because from what he remembers, he’s scarcely interacted with the townsfolk outside of scamming them out of hard-earned money. Who the hell would be _worried_ about the local grifter? 

But he no longer has the energy to argue with Mabel — nor does he have the willpower to say no to her and face those sad, concerned eyes she’s been giving him so often lately — so he follows her out the door, holding her hand as she leads him down a vaguely familiar road to the town of Gravity Falls.

***

“Shit, the kids’ birthday is in what, four days?” Stan realizes out loud. “Have I even bought any presents for them, or have I been too busy being amnesiac?”

He starts to get out of his seat at the living room table, but Ford motions for him to sit back down.

“Stan, I’m sure they’ll forgive you for not having any gifts ready. You’re their hero, after all —”

“You know, you don’t have to lie to my face like that,” Stan blurts out before he even realizes what he’s saying. “Especially not when you do such a bad job of it.”

“What?” Ford drops the photo album he’d been holding. It falls to the table with a thud. “Why would I be lying?”

Stan takes a deep breath. Part of him regrets saying anything, because letting his family lie to him made it easier to lie to _himself_ — and lying to himself is the one way he’s found to dull the guilt he feels — but there’s no going back now. Ford’s not going to let him off the hook for an outburst like that.

“I’m amnesiac, Ford, but not an idiot. You think I haven’t noticed how _every time_ I ask you how I lost my memories, you just look away and say something vague about me being a hero, then refuse to elaborate? And you’re not the only one who’s been doing it, either — when Mabel showed me around town this afternoon, you know what she said to everyone who asked how we were doing? She said I _saved_ the whole town — and _everyone_ we met just played along, and nodded in agreement!”

“ _Played along_? You think this is some kind of _prank_ we’re playing?” Ford gasped. “We would never do that to you! Especially not after the memory wipe left you so vulnerable —”

“I _know_ you’re hiding things from me, Ford. I _know_ you don’t want to talk about what really happened to my memories. But it’s no secret that I’m no good for anything — no good as a brother, no good as an uncle, and _definitely_ no good as a hero — so when will you all quit acting like you have to hide it?”

Ford is at a loss for words for a few long moments after that, but finally, he manages: “Please, Stan — tell me _everything_ I said or did that let you to this… this conclusion. Tell me so I can _never_ say anything like it again, and instead let you know what I really meant. Because I wouldn’t be here without you — I wouldn’t have any idea what to _do_ with myself without you — and I need you to know that. I need you to _believe_ that.”

Stan turns around in his chair and stares at the floor. “Really?” he whispers.

“You said I was hiding things about what happened to your memories, didn’t you? You were right. I have been keeping secrets — secrets I should’ve honest about from the beginning.” Ford looks away, sighing. “I made huge mistakes, Stan — we both did, but mine were worse, and _you_ were the one who fixed them. You were the one who _paid_ for them. I can’t possibly apologize enough for —”

“But I wasn’t the _only_ one,” Stan interrupts.

“What?”

“I wasn’t the only one who paid for someone’s mistakes. I wasn’t the only one who got hurt — I’ve seen the kids limping around, I’ve seen Wendy favoring her left arm, and I’ve _definitely_ seen you adjusting the bandages on your wrists when you thought I wasn’t looking! Maybe I did make some big heroic sacrifice, but it obviously wasn’t in time to help you! Someone _hurt_ you before I could do anything to stop them, and I…”

He buries his head in his hands. “I don’t know a whole lot. There’s a lot I still haven’t remembered, and… and maybe some of the things I thought I could assume aren’t quite right, either. But you, and the kids, and this whole ragtag bunch that hangs around the Mystery Shack… I know you all mean the whole damn _world_ to me. And — and the first thing I learned about you all, after waking up in the forest, was that you were sad and injured and _scared_. Something hurt you in so many ways I can’t even count them all. You jump whenever you see something that even kinda looks like an eye, and Dipper’s afraid to let Mabel out of his sight unless he knows she’ll be with either you or me. Before Mabel found the scrapbook, I knew two things: one, that I loved you all, and two, that something had happened to you that I hadn’t been able to protect you from. So even as I remembered more, whenever you called me a hero, it… it just felt like the most obvious lie in the world.”

Slowly, Ford rolls up his sweater sleeves to reveal the bandages wrapped around his wrists. The gauze looks pristine, which is both encouraging and worrying — encouraging because there’s no blood, and worrying because the lack of _get well soon!_ messages and smiley faces scribbled in marker means that he’s almost certainly been hiding these injuries from Mabel, too.

“I think it’s time you knew the truth about Weirdmageddon,” he tells Stan. “Really, it’s… it’s well past that time, but… better late than never.”

Stan nods without making eye contact, absentmindedly tugging at an unraveling string from the cuff of Ford’s sweater.

Ford rests his hands on top of Stan’s own. “Where to start? It was a bleak, apocalyptic, sanity-destroying week of existence, and its cause was a demon named Bill Cipher.”

“The triangle guy? From those X-ed out signs that used to be up outside the Shack?”

Ford nods. “Unfortunately, yes. Bill was from another dimension, and he wanted to extend his reign of terror all throughout ours — but mysterious forces that even he didn’t understand kept him trapped in Gravity Falls, unable to wreak chaos upon the rest of the world.”

“But _you_ knew how to free him.” It’s more of an inference than the true return of a memory, but it feels _right_. It explains so much.

“I knew how to free him,” Ford confirms. “So Bill tried to… persuade me to hand that secret over.” He unrolls his sleeves, covering up the bandages again. “You shouldn’t dwell on _what_ he did. It won’t change what happened — and despite everything, at the end of the day, I’m still here, safe and sound. But… well, you can probably assume why I wasn’t keen to talk about it.”

“He _tortured_ you? You were at the mercy of a literal fucking demon for — it must have been _days_ — and you still didn’t give up the information he wanted?”

“I very nearly did,” Ford admits, lowering his voice. “Bill was going to kill the kids if I didn’t free him. He offered me a choice between murder and a worldwide apocalypse — and I know what I would’ve chosen had it come down to it, I know which choice I could _never_ bring myself to make — but either way, innocent people would’ve died. Except _you_ came up with a third option, Stanley.”

Stan clutches his head. “We — we switched places, didn’t we? So Bill would go inside my mind instead of yours, and you could…”

“I erased you, Stan. I wiped your mind, and I’m so, _so_ sorry —”

“Don’t be! It was the only way —”

“I thought you were _gone_.” Ford’s voice breaks. “I’d just gotten you back, and I — I thought I’d lost you again. I didn’t know we’d be able to restore your memories like this — and you didn’t either, when you came up with the plan. You were willing to give up everything to save me, and Mabel, and Dipper, and who knows how many others.” 

He pauses. “That’s _heroism_ , Stanley.”

“Is it really,” Stan whispers, “when I still feel more like a failure than a hero?”

“It is,” Ford asserts. “No one ever became known as a hero simply by believing they were one — but rather, because the people that they _saved_ believed it. And this town really, truly believes what you did was heroic. Justifiably, I would argue.”

“I appreciate what you’re saying, Ford, but… that just makes me feel like I’ve deceived the whole town into thinking I’m something I’m not.” Stan doesn’t say as much, but he thinks that this feeling might be at the core of what’s been going on in his head all along. 

That maybe he wasn’t as mad at Ford and the others for keeping secrets as much as he was mad at _himself_ , for letting them believe he deserved their hero worship.

“Oh,” Ford murmurs very softly, and after a long pause, he asks: “Stan, have you ever heard of impostor syndrome?”

“No,” Stan replies, half-heartedly adding: “Not unless I heard it and forgot, but I guess we established that the memory wipe didn’t really touch the general knowledge kinda stuff.”

Ford puts a hand on Stan’s shoulder. “We’ve been talking about your past a lot lately, and for good reason, but… do you mind if I tell you a story from mine?”

Stan rubs his temples. “If you think it’ll help, then… fire away, I guess.”

“Throughout most of my life, my ego has been too big for my own good. I think we both know this. But… what you’re feeling right now reminded me of something I went through in college. A time when I couldn’t help but feel like a fraud.”

With the index finger of his free hand, Ford absentmindedly traces the structure of a molecule on the dusty table surface — a hexagonal ring with several chains branching off at the corners.

“Quite by accident, I had discovered a new synthesis route for an aromatic molecule in my organic chemistry lab — though those details really aren’t important, to be honest. The point was that my professor, incidentally one of the few faculty at Backupsmore that I respected, was impressed and encouraged me to publish the method. With her guidance, my paper made it into a moderately well-read journal, and I was invited to a conference to discuss my findings.”

Ford takes a breath for what felt like the first time since he’d started the story. “Initially, I was thrilled to attend. Though I wasn’t majoring in chemistry, I was excited to make connections with actual research scientists, but… once I arrived at the conference, I felt more out of place than I’d ever felt before in my life — and for me, that’s really saying something. I’d never been to an event like this before, and… I felt like I’d cheated my way in. I’d grown up in a poor New Jersey town, attended a college that most other schools treated like a joke, and my discovery was almost entirely because of dumb luck. Who was I to think I belonged here, among the ranks of all these far more accomplished scientists?”

Making a fist, he wipes his molecule drawing off the table. “The whole weekend, the circumstances that had brought me there felt like an awful secret I had to hide. And I felt _guilty_ for hiding it, like I was tricking the whole scientific community into taking me seriously, but I just couldn’t bear the thought of being exposed and disappointing my professor, or my classmates, or… or even Dad back home, expecting me to become rich and famous.”

“Did you end up presenting your findings?” Stan asks quietly. “How’d it go?”

Ford smiles sadly. “In hindsight? It went perfectly fine. Truthfully, I may have even impressed some people, or at worst met their expectations.”

“Of course you impressed them! You’re _you_. You’re a genius!”

“I’m glad you think so.” Ford squeezes Stan’s shoulder a little tighter. “But that day, I didn’t feel like one. That’s what impostor syndrome is — feeling like a fraud regardless of your own accomplishments, like you’ve deceived the people around you into thinking highly of you. It’s your own brain lying to you. And maybe this story wasn’t the most efficient way of explaining that, nor do I have any experiences that can compare to the stress put on your mind by the memory gun — but you are _far_ from the only extraordinary person in the world who has felt this way, Stanley. I hope that knowing that helps you stop doubting yourself.”

Stan rubs his eyes. “Maybe a little.”

“Good.” Lowering his voice, Ford adds: “I can’t imagine that three decades of pretending to be someone else would’ve helped your emotional state much, either — especially with the mindwipe jumbling everything up. I’m glad you talked about this with me — that must’ve taken a lot of strength to admit.”

“Mm-hmm.” Stan sighs. “What else helped you with this kind of thing? Besides knowing you weren’t the only one?”

“For me, countering those deprecating thoughts with logical arguments and reviews of what I’d accomplished would help to an extent — but there’s only so much that logic can do against pure nervous irrationality. I wish I could give you a more helpful answer than to sleep on it, but… personally, nothing has cured that irrationality better than the benefit of hindsight. Looking back from a removed perspective can allow you to assess the situation more fairly than you had at the time…”

He smiles. “But that said, I’ll also always be here to remind you why you _are_ a hero, should you ever need it.”

Stan smiles back. “Thank you, Ford.”

“It’s the least I could do.” Ford reopens the photo album, flipping back to where they’d left off, then hesitates. “You were asking about birthday presents for the kids, right?”

“Sure was. You got any gift ideas?”

“I was thinking less along the lines of physical gifts and more along the lines of celebratory pyrotechnics displays, actually.”

Stan snorts. “Well, that’ll just have to be a gift from the both of us, ‘cause you’ll definitely launch yourself into orbit if you try and rig that up on your own. You’ll have to let me supervise, and maybe also pick out the colors just to be on the safe side.”

Ford gently punches him in the arm, but admits, “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, comments/[reblogs](https://anistarrose.tumblr.com/post/190205519431/time-for-you-to-know-the-awful-truth-stanuary) are appreciated as always!


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